Mason Jar Lunches: Pasta Salad!

I generally let my husband make his own lunches to take to work, but every now and then I’m feeling generous and whip up something tasty!

Mason jar lunches are perfect because you can do all the prep work on Sunday night and just grab it and go each morning as you leave the house. This is great for all you working Mamas!

I bought the 32 oz. wide mouth jars so they would be easier to eat from and provide plenty of room to fill with a hearty amount of food.

Now on to the recipe! You will need:

1 bag of frozen tortellini (my bag was 19oz.)

5oz. organic Baby Spinach

1 can pitted whole Black Olives

1 pint organic Grape Tomatoes

8oz. mozzarella, cubed

4oz. organic Salami, quartered

Dressing of your choice (Marzetti has a great selection of simplistic dressings with whole ingredients!)

First you’ll want to cook up a bag of cheese tortellini, I used this brand:

Then in a bowl, mix baby spinach, cubed mozzarella, grape or cherry tomatoes, black olives and salami. You’ll notice that the majority of these items are organic, and the ones that aren’t, I could not find any other options! My cheese is not organic, but as a white cheese, it has no added dyes.

Go ahead and buy two cans of olives, you know your kids are going to want to eat their own can and stick them on their fingers while you prep!

Make sure your tortellini have cooled before you add to the bowl—otherwise you’ll melt your cheese! The mix should look like this:

Then line up 5 of the mason jars and start filling them!

I don’t add any dressing at this time or it would make the spinach and tortellini soggy. So I send a bottle with him to work to add each day to the jar at lunch time. Balsamic vinaigrette and Italian dressings are tasty choices. This was our most recent pick:

So there you have it, a quick and delicious lunch that you can make ahead for the week. What could be better? Enjoy!~Briana